There had been some
rain overnight.
With my gardening hat
on, this was a very good thing. For weeks now we have been lugging
watering cans around. My habit of keeping the garden as colourful as
possible by using pots which are moved about in rotation doesn't
help.
With my
husband-of-a-novelist hat on, it was not quite so jolly. Today is day
one of the signings (yesterday having been publication day) and it
would have been more cheerful if the sun had been shining when we
woke up. The plan was that at 9.30, Chris (the Random House rep for
the South West) would arrive to take her off to Kingsbridge (Harbour
Book Shop) and then bring her back to Totnes for this afternoon's
session. These two are our most local bookshops and so this is the
easiest day.
Down for breakfast.
Marcia is just serving up the porridge.
'Have you written the
blog?' she asked. There was a long silence.
'No.'
'Are you telling me
that you forgot all about it?'
'Yes.'
'So what are you going
to write about?'
'No idea.'
And, if I am honest I
still have no idea. It has been 'one of those weeks' with a number of
things colliding and so making sensible and cohesive thought rather
difficult.
 |
| Marcia picked the last of the sweet peas. Back at the Hermitage the last was in October but not here this year. What I don't know is whether this is because we have had such a long and sunny summer with no rain (although I have kept watering them) or because we are about five hundred feet lower which means generally warmer. For the record, I sowed the first of the seeds for next year's plants a few days ago. |
Marcia is in
full flood with her new characters and is desperate to find out where
they meet and so on. On Tuesday she disappeared to drive off on her
own and then, on Wednesday, she wanted me to go with her on another
trip during which we found the location of the main house in the
story and then discovered that one of the places we had visited
before and Marcia felt would be important probably isn't. However,
late on we had another couple of ideas but it was too late to
investigate them properly so yesterday she set off again – only to
draw a blank in both cases.
 |
| Found this guy on the car the other morning. He (or she, of course, as the case may be) is rather splendid. Haven't had time to identify him (so all ideas welcome). |
'Isn't it odd,' she
remarked. 'You just can't make characters go to places you want them
to unless they want to as well. It's silly really. Why can't I just
tell them what I want them to do?'
I think the answer to
that question is that she creates such full and rounded characters
that they do have very strong personalities of their own and then
cannot be persuaded to do anything that is out of character.
 |
| Marcia and I walked around the gardens here at Dartington Hall the other day. All very autumnal now. |
Meanwhile, I have been
finishing off what was intended to be an ebook – only to find that
it just doesn't work the way I wanted it to. The technology for
including lots of photographs, illustrations and so on in ebooks is
very new. Sadly the results are really not that clever. Anyway, come
Thursday and I was convinced that we had to return to 'plan A' – a
printed version rather than an electronic one. The result was that I
spent yesterday tweaking the book so as to prepare it for the
printers (a job I finished late in the evening) and, as a result, I
completely forgot to even think about the blog.
The schedule now is
straightforward. As soon as I have finished this I shall print off a
copy and over the next couple of days that will be proof-read. With
any luck I shall be in the printers on Tuesday and then we shall have
a better idea of when it will be ready.
If I am honest, I am
quite pleased. It may be possible to republish it as an ebook at some
future date but really I feel this is better as a 'proper book'.
 |
| Barney may look a bit fierce but he's just a real softy. We had an intense love-in after I had taken his photograph. |
